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Spring arrived battered, her frilly skirt covered in mud from the floods, her petals, delicate as dragonfly wings, torn and shredded from high winds. But wait, I said. You’re supposed to be the symbol of new growth, green shoots pushing up through frozen ground, birds returning to build nests and sing us happy songs. Spring … Continue reading Initiation

In the dark of the night, I still wake with fears about things I cannot control. I still reach for reassurance that all will be well when we are living with the weight of ten tons of uncertainty about all we took for granted. In the dark of the night, I peel through the layers … Continue reading who do you think you are?

I’ve stopped saying things can’t get any worse, because they can, and do. I don’t need to make lists for you. Even if you don’t read the news, you can read the shock and despair on your friend’s face. Even if you ask not to be told the details, every life lost is written in … Continue reading sanctuary

It is 3am, the hour of the black dog, and my heart is pounding, battering my chest like a bird flinging itself against the bars of a cage. Let me out, she gasps. I’m wounded. I’m bleeding. I press my hand to her wild thrashing, and say sweetheart, tell me. What’s wrong? She begins to … Continue reading rebel heart

Here’s what I want to tell you: Japanese monks and nuns write poems as they lay dying. Japanese death poems. You can look it up. What do they say? Some version of I am here at the edge of unknowing. It is dark. It is light. The light is within the dark. There is no … Continue reading darkness as medicine